Silhouettes
by jellyjay
Summary: Every dream of every life time he's had has felt lonely and remorseful, yearning for someone he'd supposedly lost and never found again. He wonders if this is what it is to be insane.


_Silhouettes_

He reads about her in a book.

It's a battered old paperback he finds in the anatomy section of the library while he's looking for a case study for his final assignment of the year. The pages are yellowed and the front cover is so faded that he can barely make out the title. _The Amber Prison_ it read, and Armin had frowned to himself because that didn't sound like something that belonged in the anatomy library at all. He had shrugged and added it to the pile in his arms anyway, with every intention of asking the librarian on duty to direct him to where it _should_ belong, but it wasn't until he'd gotten back to his dorm that he realized he'd accidentally checked it out with the others.

He starts it mostly because he's curious. Everybody knows the legend; it's a creation story of sorts – or rather, a _re_ creation story with a fair focus on redemption for humanity. Once, it was told, they dabbled in something they shouldn't have, and as a result, the Titans were created and destroyed the world as it was. What few survivors there were built their cities behind walls and there they stayed until they could take the world back and start again. And so they did.

It's a relatively well known story, but that's all it is.

Armin figures this book is just another retelling, written through the eyes of a nameless soldier from the squad that turned the tide, but it starts like this:

 _'I met her in Trost._

 _She was a tiny, quiet little thing – probably one of the smallest in our squad – but she always had this look on her face like she was bored with the speeches and exercises they put us through in our first months of training. To everyone else, I suppose she was terrifying. To me, she had the sun in her hair and the ocean I'd only read about in her eyes._

 _Her name was Annie Leonhardt and we destroyed each other.'_

Armin frowns. The name is strange to him but he's not sure why – he's sure he's never known anyone called Annie or Leonhardt, let alone both, but he whispers it to himself and it tastes familiar on his lips.

"Annie Leonhardt."

"Who's that?"

Armin snaps the book shut and glances up to find his roommate staring at him from the doorway of their dorm room. "No one," he says quickly (because he's sure she is. Perhaps he'd read her name in another version of the story and he's just forgotten.)

Eren snorts. "No one, huh?" he teases. "Are you sure?"

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?" asks Armin, giving his friend a look.

Eren shrugs, but there's a smirk tugging on his lips as if he knows something Armin doesn't. "I thought you'd finally met a girl," he says. "Which, you know, _finally_ – "

"Dude." Armin rolls his eyes. "No. Too busy, remember?"

"Yeah but you mentioned her in your sleep the other day," says Eren.

Armin stares at him. "What."

"I sleep in the other bed, man, you think I wouldn't notice if you talked in your sleep?" Eren lets out a laugh. "I gotta go, but when you're ready to spill the beans about this Annie chick, you let me know." He waves lazily and disappears down the hall leaving Armin confused and staring dumbly at the door.

x

He dreams a lot but often doesn't remember them unless they're particularly outrageous.

Tonight is different.

He dreams he is a lord - which, he supposes, is outrageous in itself, but he means outrageous in the way that he once had a dream where he watched Eren turn into a toucan. The content of this dream is far from ridiculous. In fact, it just feels like a day in the life of someone else.

Everything is fine.

Everything is normal.

There's nothing about it he thinks he should remember but it bothers him for the rest of the day.

He dreams he is a lord and there is an art exhibition at a small gallery not too far from where he lives. He's heard there's a great variety of art available for purchase and he figures his home could use something new.

He mills through the maze of portraits and landscapes, and some of the more recent less traditional paintings, but he's drawn to one hidden the back of the gallery that no one seems to pay any mind to.

It's of a girl, eyes shut and palms up, trapped in amber and trapped again in the canvas.

He thinks he knew her once, but he's not sure. He buys it the next day because he can't get her face out of his mind.

When he wakes, his head is pounding like he'd downed a bottle of vodka in one go the night before and his chest aches like something had rammed into him in his sleep. The tattered old book is lying on the carpet. Eren has already left.

His alarm clock reads 0943.

 _Crap._

He jumps out of bed, dresses in a hurry, and very nearly flies out of the door because Medical Ethics started nearly an hour ago and he imagines Dr. Smith won't be pleased that he's so late.

x

"What are you reading?"

Armin jumps. "Oh," he manages, shutting the book closed instinctively and wincing when he realizes that he's just lost his page. "Mikasa. What are you doing here?"

Mikasa shrugs and drops into the armchair across from him. " _The Amber Prison_ huh?" she reads, ignoring his question. "Sounds ominous."

Armin lets out a sheepish laugh. "It's – I found it in the anatomy section," he confesses. "I was going to ask where it belonged but I started reading it the other night and... it was interesting. It takes place in the Titan story."

"Oh?" says Mikasa, sounding genuinely curious. " _The Amber Prison..._ oh! As in the Traitor?"

"I dunno... I think so." Armin pauses. "It's a bit strange to be honest. It's written entirely in first person but there's only one named character in the whole book."

"Sounds right up Professor Zoe's alley," Mikasa says with a chuckle. "Extra arts-y literature, Titans... she'd have a field day with that."

"Maybe," mumbles Armin thoughtfully. "Hey. Do we know anyone called Annie?"

Mikasa thinks for a moment. "Don't think so," she says mildly. "Which is weird that you would ask because Eren said _you_ knew someone called Annie. Why?"

Armin pauses. "I don't know," he mumbles at last. "The name sounds... familiar, is all."

x

He dreams he is a painter.

The room is littered with canvases and oil paints and there is an unfinished painting of her on the stand. She's trapped in amber, eyes shut and palms up, cornflour hair in a halo around her head.

Armin studies it. Stares at her face, and at her neck and at the single tear on her cheek and, finally, he tears it off the stand and lets it lie with the others.

Other paintings of her. Smiling. Laughing. Crying. Broken.

None of them look right.

She's been missing for so long that he almost doesn't remember what she looks like.

x

Epidemiology has never been particularly interesting to him, and combined with his lack of sleep, Armin just can't convince himself to pay attention to today's reading. It's his own fault, he supposes. Reading until 3 AM was a poor decision on his part, and he'd woken from a dream at 6 AM and hadn't been able to get back to sleep since. He promises himself that he'll review the text later instead of staying up late to read more of _The Amber Prison_ even though he knows it's not likely he'll follow through.

He's sitting in the back of the library today, earphones plugged in, streaming symphonies from a playlist on Spotify in a pathetic attempt to keep his mind from wandering but it's not doing him much good. He's still only pretending to annotate his lecture notes.

Really, he's doodling broken diamonds and shards of crystal in the corner of the page.

"Armin?"

He tugs the earphones out of his ears and glances up. "Bertl," he greets, grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "Hey man, I haven't seen you in ages."

"Yeah," says Bertl, grinning back. "How've you been? You look exhausted."

"Ha... yeah." Armin jerks his head at the mountains of notes on the desk. "No rest for the idiots in med school," he jokes. "What about you?"

"Same as always," answers Bertl with a shrug. "We have a gig at this bar – Scouts or something – it's a couple of blocks away from here. We're there for the week."

"What, it's local?" Armin lets out a laugh. "Maybe I can actually make it to this one. I'll ask Eren and Mikasa if they wanna come too."

"That'd be nice, I haven't seen them in forever either. You guys could meet Reiner!" He grins eagerly but it fades a little when checks his watch. "Damn. Well, I won't keep you but see you maybe later this week, yeah? Good pick though." He nods at the Spotify playlist on Armin's laptop. " _Lionheart_ 's a great piece. I get this weird nostalgia off it every time I listen." He shrugs. "Anyway, see you around, man."

"See you," says Armin, and he turns back to his laptop and frowns at the album cover of _Lionheart._

It's a girl trapped in amber; eyes shut and palms up, cornflour hair in a mess around her head.

He slams his laptop shut before he can think any harder about it.

x

He dreams he is a musician.

He's sitting on a stage surrounded by other people and their instruments. Eren is sitting in the back with another percussionist watching Mikasa with soft eyes as she tunes each section in their pre-show warm up. Dr. Smith is there too, fiddling with a sheaf of sheet music with his back turned towards the closed curtain.

"Are you ready, Mr. Arlert?" he asks, and too late, Armin realizes that he is sitting at a grand piano a little way away from the rest of the orchestra. "You've been working on this concerto for months. Tonight's your night."

"I suppose," he answers. "Though it doesn't matter as much as you think it does. It was meant for someone who isn't here."

"Oh?"

"It's complicated," he says quietly. "Sometimes I think I dreamt her up entirely."

Dr. Smith chuckles. "You're young yet, Mr. Arlert. I'm sure she's around here somewhere. Patience is virtue."

"No it's not," says Armin, letting out a hollow laugh. "I think I've been waiting lifetimes for her."

x

He finishes up his clinical late one day and he trudges back to his dorm, tired and close to dead on his feet. He'd always known studying to be a doctor would be physically and mentally exhausting, and he knew he'd lose a patient one day; he'd just hoped he wouldn't for years to come. There'd been an accident – a truck driver had run a red light and smashed into a car with two boys about his age.

When they brought the first boy into the Emergency Department, Armin had almost thrown up on the spot. Not because the kid had lost more than three litres of blood, but because he'd seen him on campus a couple of times.

The second boy - the driver - had no chance. They could barely pull him out of the wreckage in one piece. He'd died while Armin was trying to resuscitate him. Dr. Smith had called the time of death, and Armin had left and _actually_ thrown up once he made it back to the break room.

He gets back to his dorm room to find a ' _Do not disturb'_ sign hanging from the doorknob with heavy breaths and quiet moans sounding through the wooden door. He lets out a groan and touches his forehead to the doorjamb.

"Typical," he mumbles.

Eren is his best friend, yes, but that will not stop him from admitting that he is not the most considerate roommate. Mikasa has her dorm room to herself, and there is never any danger of inconveniencing someone else there. This is not the first time Armin has had to take refuge in the break rooms at the hospital.

He sighs again and turns on his heel.

The university hospital is only across the road from campus, but the campus is still big enough to make the walk at least ten minutes long. Armin plods all the way back, shoulders slumped and eyes locked on the sidewalk. He lets himself back into the Emergency Department's break room, dumps his things into his locker again and is only a moment from collapsing into the nearest couch when he considers going up to Intensive Care to see the boy from earlier.

He does because he's not sure he can deal with Marco Bodt's death on replay in his head.

x

 _'She wasn't the friendliest person in the squad, so I suppose I understand why she spent most of her free time by herself. It definitely wasn't as if she didn't have friends – she was well liked by the people that knew her well. At times it just felt as if she didn't want to fit in – that she didn't want to believe she was one of us._

 _There were times I wondered why, and times I wanted to ask her but failed myself at the last second._

 _She noticed. And it seemed she knew what was on my mind._

 _"What's the point?" she asked me one day. "The walls have been breached once. They'll be breached again. Look at them all. How many do you think will survive next time?"_

The kid in the bed gasps and Armin jolts forward instinctively to make sure he doesn't disturb any of the monitoring equipment. His book drops to the floor, but he pays it no mind. ICU is always eerily quiet, save for the soft hum of respirators and the steady pulses of patients on heart monitors. According to his charts, the kid's name is Jean, and his laboured breathing sounds especially loud in a ward full of the sick and dying.

"Hey," says Armin in something barely louder than a whisper. "Hey, you're okay, everything's fine now."

"What happened?" he asks hoarsely. "Where's Marco?"

"Ah..." Armin pauses and stares at his shoes. "There – there was an accident," he mumbles. "You were in pretty bad shape when they brought you in, but..."

Another pause. "He's gone, isn't he?" It's not a question – Armin can hear the hollow certainty in Jean's voice.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, but Jean has lifted his non-cannulated arm to stifle a sob and looks as if he couldn't care less about whatever apologies Armin has to offer.

"Goddammit," he chokes. "Marco, you dumbass, I told you that you should have let me drive..."

Armin hesitates, because while he's here to check on his patient, he feels like he has no right to be in Jean's time of grief. "I'll get the nurse..." he offers lamely.

"Just unhook me," he groans. "Just let me _die..._ "

"Don't – don't talk like that – come on – Marco would never want –"

"The _hell_ do you know?" Jean snaps. "God, he's _gone_... let me die, I'll see him in the next life..."

Armin cringes. He's seen a lot of things – it comes with the territory, unfortunately; med school is not a place for the faint hearted – but this is the first time he's ever had to experience a patient's grief first hand because he couldn't save their friend.

He feels sick to his stomach again, and he wants to shrink and hide from all of this when a nurse – Petra, he thinks her name is – hurries in to stabilise Jean's condition again.

"Armin?" she asks as passes. "What are you still doing here? Dr. Smith said your shift ended a little while ago."

He offers her a tired smile. "It's a long story," he mumbles. "But I can't get into my dorm room so..."

"Your shift still ended," she says. "Come now, they're not even paying you to be here yet. Go get some rest."

"Hm." Armin can't help but let out a dry chuckle. Petra has always been one of the kinder nurses here – he's met her a few times from joint clinicals with some of the student nurses. "I suppose you're right," he says. "Thanks Petra."

x

He dreams he is a writer.

There are pages everywhere; scattered on his desk and strewn over the floor – there's a bin in the corner of the room that's filled to the brim with crumpled up bits of paper and inkless pens. It feels like he's in a hurry – as if he's trying to get everything down on paper before the words chew him up from the inside out.

He writes about her hair and how it once gleamed in the sunlight; of her eyes like he's never seen the ocean when he can hear waves crashing on the shore outside; and of her laugh, desperate and crazy and beautiful all at once.

She'd started as just a dream. A girl he'd created because it felt as if there was always something he had lost before he even had the chance to have it. Something feels all too real about her now.

He thinks she'd destroyed him, once upon a time. She is destroying him still, and he has never even met her.

x

The university flies its flags at half mast for a week to mourn Marco Bodt's death, and it's a week of hell for Armin. He knows it's not his fault. He knows that Marco's injuries were beyond anything he could have done and that he would have died in Dr. Smith's hands all the same.

But the week is hell because every time he sees those flags, he is reminded that he is barely twenty-two and he has already lost a patient.

He cradles his head in his hands and stares down at the yellowed pages of _The Amber Prison_ , hoping it'll help take his mind off Marco's death, but the words look foreign to him. He barely gets through a page before he decides it's too quiet and he can't concentrate without something to listen to.

His Spotify playlist is still open from the day Bertl came to say hello and he decides then and there that he probably won't be able to go with Eren and Mikasa to see him later this week. It seems too soon to go out. Sighing, he plugs his earphones into his ears and taps the space bar on his laptop.

The soft thrum of strings floods his ears, and for a second, relief washes over him. His shoulders sag, and he lets out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and the tension seems to disappear with the crescendo of the orchestra. He shuts his eyes and takes his first proper breath since he woke that morning, relishing the quiet in his mind.

Then the soft tinkling of a piano begins over the hum of the rest of the other instruments, and suddenly the tension in his system is back. It's almost like he's in a dream again, except he's not because he knows he's still awake. He sees a crowd in a concert hall and his fingers at a piano; there is music in front of him and a dull ache in his chest like he's looking for something he can't find and he's lost all hope of ever finding it. It starts as something remorseful, but the longer he plays, the more frustrated he seems to get. _I'm sorry I can't find you_ turns into _why can't I find you_ , and suddenly, he's furious at himself for failing someone he's never met.

 _I'm sorry_ , he wants to say, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'msorry –_

He tears the earphones from his ears and opens his eyes.

The crowd is gone but the tattered old book is still on his desk. _Lionheart_ is still playing through his earphones. The girl on the album cover is still trapped in amber.

The pain in his chest is real, though. His breath is shallow and uneven, and her name forms itself on his lips before he's even really gotten himself together. " _Annie."_

The dorm room door clicks shut, and Armin glances up much too late to see Eren watching him with a concerned frown on his features. "Dude... are you okay?"

He swallows because he's not really sure that he is. He has no idea what's just happened, but it was almost as if he _remembers_ playing a concerto for a crowd when he has never touched a piano in his life, but he catches the name of the artist and he is reeling again.

 _Arlert._

"I need some air," he mumbles shakily.

He slams the book shut and leaves without another word.

x

He dreams he is an archeologist.

He's at a fork in a tunnel somewhere, deep, deep underground. The walls are made of ordered stone bricks, and the orange glow of the lantern at his feet seems to set them on fire. There is a map in his hands, and he studies it closely, eyes following the lines to a chamber marked in red some two kilometres ahead. _She must be there_ , he thinks, and he picks up his lantern and sets off again.

He wanders for what feels like hours, but the mark on the map doesn't feel like it's getting closer. The passage turns and turns and splits and converges, but Armin keeps his eye on the room at the end of the path.

 _She_ must _be there,_ he thinks again, fingers curling tighter around the handle of the lantern. _She must be._

He checks his map again twice. He retraces his steps. He looks and he looks and he looks but the tunnel never ends.

Armin wakes with a start. His chest feels tight and his breathing is short. The light streaming through the blinds fills his head with head with pain like he hasn't seen sunlight in days.

It's 0950.

He groans and only just convinces himself to roll out of bed and make the journey to class.

x

Jean is moved into the general medical ward as soon as Dr. Smith is satisfied that his condition is stable, and Armin finds himself going to visit as soon as he finishes his shift in ED. He doesn't really know why. He reasons it's a lot of things: Jean is his age and he imagines he could use a friend in the same sort of grief; he wants to apologise for being unable to resuscitate Marco; he is a soon-to-be doctor and following up on their patients is what good doctors do – but when Mina, one of the student nurses at the nurses' station in Gen Med, greets him, he suddenly doesn't remember why he's here.

"Hey," she says, offering him a kind smile. "I heard what happened. I'm really sorry."

Armin shakes his head. "It's – it's fine Mina. I – um – " he falters.

"You wanted to see Jean, right?" she finishes. "It's okay. Petra mentioned you might stop by. He's in 104."

"Thanks," Armin mumbles awkwardly, and he shuffles away from the nurses' station hoping he hasn't made himself look too unprofessional. He knocks on the open door and offers Jean a half-hearted smile. "Hey," he greets. "How're you doing?"

Jean snorts. "Shit," he says hoarsely. "Marco's dead."

Armin winces at the finality of it. "I'm sorry. I should have –"

"They told me there was nothing anyone could have done," says Jean, clenching is fists into the sheets. "He was – he got hit hard. There was no way he could have bounced back from it."

"I'm – I'm still sorry I couldn't have done anything else," says Armin. His voice breaks a little, but he swallows the guilt and the shame bubbling in his stomach. This will not be the last time he has to face the friends and family of patients he can't save. He takes a breath. "I'm just – I'm sorry."

Jean sighs. "Your apologies won't do anyone any good," he says quietly. "Marco's dead, and apologizing won't bring him back. Believe me." He looks away. "It should have been me. I told him I would drive, I shouldn't have let him –" He snorts. "He was as much of a stubborn jackass as me."

They lapse into silence and Armin hovers awkwardly by the doorway wondering if he should stay or if he should go. He takes a breath, wanting to apologise once more and to excuse himself but the words that force their way out of his mouth are not the ones he intended.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Ask what you want," deadpans Jean. "It's not like I can go anywhere."

"You – um –" Armin hesitates, wondering if this is really the best time to go about this but, he figures, there's no telling if he'll be able to ask again. "You said something the other night. About... 'seeing him in the next life'. I was just... wondering what you meant."

Jean blinks at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's... you said you wanted to – " Armin hesitates; he's not sure he wants to believe someone as young as Jean really wanted to die. He swallows. "You wanted to see him in the next life."

"I don't remember saying it," says Jean with a tired shrug. "Even if I did... It's just something people say, isn't it?"

Armin pauses. "Yeah. I suppose so."

x

 _'I couldn't pretend I wasn't a little bit angry – we'd just lost our friends but it seemed more important to our leaders that we discuss the murder of the things we'd been taught to murder instead of mourn our dead. But we did as we were told, and we stood together in the hall with our gear for inspection and questioning._

 _Annie stood next to me but her gear seemed... different. I considered asking but I never got the chance._

 _"What about you, Armin?" she said quietly. "Who will you join after this -" she nodded at everybody else in the hall – "is all over?"_

 _I hesitated. "I think that if you know why you have to die, then there'll come a time when you must," I said carefully. "N-not that I want to."_

 _"So you've made your choice," she murmured._

 _"Yes." I sighed. "I've been thinking about it for a while."_

"Armin, was it?"

Armin looks up and dog ears his page carefully. Professor Zoe seems rather young to have tenure already, but he's heard good things about her from Dr. Smith.

She grins at him and beckons him into the office. It's a bit of a mess; there are textbooks lying haphazardly on the floor and multiple teetering towers of students' assignments on the two filing cabinets in the corner. The shelf above her desk catches his eye though. It's the neatest shelf in the whole room and it holds a rather extensive collection of retellings of the Titan story. Underneath it is an old map of the Walled Cities. "You're one of Erwin's kids aren't you?" she asks, jolting Armin back into reality. "What brings you all the way to Chemical Engineering?"

"Um." He coughs. "Mikasa said you might be interested in what I found in the anatomy section a few weeks ago," he starts. He holds up the book.

Professor Zoe studies the cover. " _The Amber Prison,_ hm," she says thoughtfully, taking the tattered old paperback from him. "This is another Titan story but you know, I don't think I've ever heard of it – and that's saying something." She chuckles. "It looks specific to the Traitor."

"Um. Yeah," Armin says awkwardly. "Annie Leonhardt."

"Who's that?" asks Professor Zoe curiously.

"The Traitor." He nods at the book. "She's the only named character in the whole thing. Was that not her name?"

Zoe shrugs. "As far as I was aware, she didn't have a name. To be fair, no one in the story is really did - but the books just call her The Female Titan or the Traitor. She's not entirely important to the Titan story, really – as far as I'm aware, she traps herself in amber and she's never mentioned again. Most people agree that she was affiliated with the other traitors – the Colossal and Armoured Titans – but they came back to help reclaim land towards the end, so I suppose she never lost the Traitor label because she never came back to redeem herself."

"I don't think she had the option to," says Armin without really thinking about it. "I feel like... if she could come out whenever she wanted, she would have done it by now."

Zoe eyes him over the top of her glasses. "You say that like she's still there," she says slowly. "You know that there's no evidence of any of this happening, don't you? It's just a story. Like. Atlantis."

"There's evidence of the Walled Cities," he says dumbly, and he regrets saying it the moment it leaves his lips. "I mean – I know that's different but –" He clears his throat. "It's... just a theory. Everyone theorises about stories they like, don't they?"

"Hm." Zoe chuckles a little. "I suppose that's true. Otherwise we wouldn't have these." She holds up the book and studies the cover again.

"You... wouldn't happen to know how to find out who wrote it, would you?" asks Armin.

Zoe shrugs, flipping through the book again. "This version looks like it was published a solid century ago. At least. The only clue anyone would have would be this." She opens the back page to him. "Don't read anything else," she warns with a grin. "Spoilers. But look here." She taps at the corner of the last page. "Back in the day, it was customary for writers to leave author's notes in the back of their works, with their initials printed in the back as a sort of signature. Have a look."

Armin does.

 _A.A._

x

He dreams of the paintings again.

He's not the painter or the lord, this time. He's himself, and he's standing in a hall full of paintings of her. Her eyes are shut in all of them, but he knows they're as blue as the surface of the deepest ocean. Her hair is down in most, but he knows without looking at the others that she wears it in an untidy bun at nape of her neck. He knows the colour of her lips and the shape of her nose and the hint of a frown barely visible on her features; he knows she likes daffodils and that she has an odd fascination with butterflies that she will never admit to –

He knows a lot of things about her, he realizes.

He also knows she won't be there when he wakes up.

x

The alarm on his nightstand sounds like a foghorn, and Armin groans and slams his palm on the snooze button. It's 0930.

He rolls over and doesn't get out of bed.

 ****x

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

The question is a surprise, even to him. Mikasa is hanging out in their room today; her head is on Eren's lap and his hands are playing absently with her hair. She raises an eyebrow at him. "Don't be racist, Armin."

Armin can't help but snort mirthlessly into his book. "I didn't mean it like that," he says. "The concept though. Do you think we could have been other people before?"

"Who knows," says Mikasa shrugging. "We could have been, but there's no way to prove that. There's no way we'd know."

"There could be ways to tell," says Armin carefully. "I mean… do you ever remember things you know never happened?"

Mikasa pauses, and even Eren stops his ministrations to tilt his head at him.

"I can't say that I have," says Mikasa slowly. "Is everything okay?"

Armin heaves a sigh. Nothing is really okay right now, he thinks. Eren and Mikasa have always had each other, and even in every one of his dreams, they have always been happy together. The closest he has to that is heartache from images of a girl from a fairy tale. If that isn't pathetic, he doesn't know what it is.

"Everything's fine," he says at last. "I'm going out."

x

Armin finds Bertl sitting on the steps outside the music department with hulking blonde man he has never met. He considers, for a moment, turning around and going back to his dorm, but his mind has been fairly preoccupied lately, and Eren and Mikasa's displays of affection are not helping in the least. Bertl waves to him before he can change his mind anyway, and his feet drag him forward like they're on a mission and his brain hasn't caught up yet.

"Where were you on Saturday?" Bertl teases, but Armin isn't really in the mood to joke so all he can do in reply is offer a half hearted shrug.

"Something came up," he says, staring at his shoes. It's partially true – he'd lost Marco Bodt on a hospital bed and even now, he still doesn't have the energy to even think about going out – but he doesn't want to talk about that either.

Thankfully, Bertl waves him off. "It's cool, man. I know you're busy. This is Reiner, though." He motions to the blonde kid next to him. "We're dating."

"Hey," says Reiner with a friendly grin. "Bertl mentioned you. Armin, right?"

"Oh," says Armin, squashing the pang of envy that rises in his chest. Everyone seems to be whole but him. He gives Reiner's hand a quick shake. "Um. Congratulations. It's nice to meet you." He pauses. Social interaction is particularly difficult today, and more than anything, he just wants to find a quiet room to sleep in.

"How'd you like _Lionheart_?" Bertl asks, before the lapse can even start to feel awkward. Armin almost sighs with gratitude.

"Um." He pauses again. "I... wanted to ask you about it, actually." He pauses a third time because he's sure he didn't intend for those words to come out of his mouth but it's as if he has lost all control of the speech centres in his brain. "What's it about?"

Bertl hums thoughtfully. "A girl, I think," he says after a moment. "They say Arlert was in love when he wrote it."

"Arlert, huh?" says Armin, trying to be casual about it.

"Yeah." Bertl chuckles at him. "I thought you'd find that interesting. It's actually a pretty common Germanic name. Like, y'know. Bach. There are a million Bachs." He snorts. "Anyway, yeah. They say Arlert was in love, but if you listen to it enough times, it sounds more like he's apologising to someone. Maybe it was both."

"Do you know to who?" asks Armin, but he thinks he knows the answer already.

Bertl shrugs. "The girl in the amber," he says. "The one on the album cover. It was a painting once, y'know?"

"But isn't she -?"

"Just a character from the Titan story?" Bertl finishes. He smiles, but Armin thinks it looks a little bit sad. "He hung himself about a week after it was first performed, and everyone seems to think that he went a little mad towards the end. Personally, I think it's hard to say. Mad people don't write anything as honest as that. Maybe he was just hopeful that he'd see her in death."

x

He dreams he is a soldier.

Perhaps he is the one from the book. He thinks he might be because, for the first time, she is there too, and she is a person, not a painting or a dull ache in his chest. They are standing in formation, and Annie Leonhardt is standing two rows ahead with her back turned to him. There's an officer standing at a podium in front of them, and Armin can hear him, droning on and on about giving their lives to humanity, but he's not listening.

He keeps his eyes on her.

He doesn't want to risk losing sight of her in case he can't find her again.

x

Armin wakes. She's gone, of course. It takes him an entire minute longer than it should to realize that he's in his dorm room, still in bed. The alarm clock reads 0350 and Armin scowls, frustration bubbling in his stomach. He can still see her in his mind's eye, cornflour hair tucked into its usual messy bun, arm pressed to her chest in the salute of the Walled Cities.

 _"It's just a story_ ," Professor Zoe had said.

He wonders if that's really true.

x

He heads to the library as soon as it opens even though he has a class on at the same time. He's been skipping a lot of classes, he notes dimly, but he either hasn't had the energy to go or it seemed pointless at the time. Given what happened with Marco, Armin hopes Dr. Smith understands.

This feels more important anyway. He can catch up on his classes later – everything's recorded and he knows how to find what he needs to pass his assessment this semester. But he has to solve this first. He dreams too much to get any real rest in the night time and he feels like whatever's happening to him will drive him crazy if he doesn't figure it all out soon.

He drops his bag on an empty table and raids the Literature and History sections for every book he can find on the Walled Cities. He runs a search for every published analysis of the Titan story the university has access to. He reads for hours and photocopies what he can't read immediately so he can find it again later.

It's not until Mikasa finds him in the late afternoon that he realizes he hasn't had anything to since he got out of bed.

"Oh my God, Armin," she breathes. "Is this where you've been all day?"

Armin offers her a vague sort of "hm" in return.

"This... this is all Titan story stuff." Mikasa frowns. "What's going on? You've been acting weird for days."

"It's nothing," says Armin quickly – almost defensively. "It's... It got really interesting is all."

"Interesting enough to miss classes?" Mikasa sits herself down beside him. "You've got Dr. Smith interrupting other lectures to ask people if they've seen you. He's worried that... losing that kid might have hit you too hard. We all are."

"His name was Marco," Armin mumbles, "and I'd rather not talk about it."

Mikasa purses her lips. "You've gotta find an outlet for this, Armin," she says quietly.

"I am," he defends, looking up at her at last. "This is it, okay? There's... I'm looking for something and it's taking my mind off what happened, and I think, when I find it... everything might be okay again."

"Maybe I can help –"

"You can't," he interrupts. "It's something I have to do on my own."

" _Why_? What are you even looking for?"

Armin hesitates. He's looking proof, he thinks; proof that the Titan story isn't just a story and he's not just going crazy. He's looking for proof that maybe he has lived other lives before. Most of all, he's looking for proof of Annie Leonhardt, so he knows he's not just being haunted by some girl from a myth.

Except he knows how that sounds, and Mikasa already thinks he's losing it. "I don't know," he answers at last. "But I'll know when I find it so can you just..."

Mikasa studies him for a moment, but she sighs. "Have you had anything to eat?"

"I wasn't hungry," says Armin shortly.

She shakes her head at him. "If you're not going to let me help you, I'm at least going to make sure you don't starve yourself. And then I'm coming back and I'm not leaving until you do, okay?"

He blinks at her. He supposes he shouldn't be so surprised – Mikasa has always known when to stop prying, and he's grateful that she cares so much, but he'd been hoping to do this alone. He can't handle being around people right now, but he figures that it's just a compromise he has to deal with. "Okay," he mumbles finally.

"Good." She pats his shoulder. "I'll go and get you some dinner, yeah?"

Armin nods, mostly because he doesn't have a choice, but as she turns around, he coughs. "Mikasa," he calls. "I'm sorry I've been such a mess... but thank you."

She offers him a somewhat relieved smile. "Any time."

x

He dreams he is a soldier again.

He's on a horse, riding away from Wall Rose and toward Wall Maria. He thinks he's on a mission because he can see other riders in the field heading in the same direction. Then he sees it in the distance; something monstrous with footfalls that shake the very ground beneath him. It doesn't look like a normal Titan, he thinks; according the books he'd read just today, it looks more like an Aberrant. It's female too, which is rather odd.

Then it turns and comes after him.

It's _not_ Aberrant, he realizes; it's intelligent, and it's making a beeline for him. His heart leaps into his throat as he fumbles with a smoke pistol. He fires a round into the air, but it gains ground faster than anyone can come to his aid. "It's going to kill me," he mutters to himself. "I'm going to die!"

But he doesn't.

The foot that he'd been sure would have crushed him lands inches from his horse, knocking them both to the ground. His hood flies over his head, and he braces himself for a death that never comes. Instead, there's a great rumble a few metres away and he looks up in time to see that it's crouched over him.

It picks at his hood with giant but surprisingly gentle fingers. It studies his face through ocean blue eyes.

Then it gets up and leaves again, leaving Armin terrified and trembling but _alive._

x

Armin wakes with a start with, covered with sweat and with his heart pounding furiously in his chest. His breaths come in quick, shaky gasps, and they're loud enough to wake Eren, who rolls over to cast a concerned eye at him.

"Armin," he mumbles tiredly. "You okay, man?"

"Fine," Armin chokes. "I'm f-fine. Bad dream, that's – that's all."

Eren watches him with a look on his face that says he doesn't believe him, but he seems to understand that Armin doesn't want to talk about it. He sighs. "Okay," he says finally. "You know what to do if you need to talk." He gives him a tired smile and rolls back over.

For a moment, Armin thinks he might be able to calm down enough to sleep too, but as he lays his head down again, the face of the Titan appears in his mind. He decides he's better off waiting for the dawn.

x

He stays in bed for the majority of the next day, feigning sickness to keep Eren away. His mind is a mess: he hasn't had a decent eight hours of sleep in days; he doesn't eat because food tastes like ash in his mouth; his brain feels like a wrung sponge and looking at his notes gives him headaches he can't stand.

He spends his day under the covers, reading random passages from _The Amber Prison_ with _Lionheart_ playing quietly in the background, trying to make sense of the twinges in his chest. Who was she, he asks himself, and what had he done to deserve the pain she brings him today when he has never even met her?

He wonders if this is what it is to be insane.

He climbs out of bed at last at around midnight. Eren isn't back yet, but as he glances out the window, he thinks he knows why.

He's in the quad with Mikasa, and they are dancing. He can hear the echoes of Mikasa's giggles as Eren twirls her from all the way up here.

Armin has been friends with them for longer than he can even remember, but there has never been any doubt about how in love his two friends are. They love him too, of course – he knows they consider him family, but it's not the same. They are two halves of a whole; when Eren breathes in, Mikasa breathes out, and the absolute worst can come at them, but they will be fine as long as they are together.

What is it like, he wonders, to love like they do and know that they are loved in return?

Has he ever known? Every dream of every life time he's had has felt lonely and remorseful, yearning for someone he'd supposedly lost and never found again. Even if Annie Leonhardt _had_ existed once, why is it that he's still looking for her? Why isn't she here today?

He turns away from the window, wondering when he started to believe in things as stupid as past lives and fairy tales.

x

"Humour me for a minute?" Armin asks.

He's in the library again, staring at his now rather extensive collection of books. It's a wonder the librarian hasn't thrown a fit at him for turning the language and history section into his personal area for a subject he doesn't even study. Eren is with him today, and while he'd prefer he were left alone in his mess, he's actually somewhat grateful for his company. Eren doesn't mother him like Mikasa does – he's only here because she insisted he keep an eye on Armin. He's sitting in a bean bag between two shelves, and Armin seeks him out because he needs to discuss something out loud without looking like he's talking to himself.

"Sure I guess," says Eren, glancing up at him from his assignment briefly. "What do you need?"

Armin hesitates. "Remember when... I asked if you guys believed in reincarnation?"

Eren pauses. 'Yeah..."

"If you... knew someone... in a past life," says Armin carefully. "Why would they not be with you in your current life?"

Eren stares at him. "That is an ultra vague question, man, not gonna lie. Maybe... maybe you haven't found them yet?"

"That's not it," says Armin, shaking his head. "What if you've been looking for them over multiple lifetimes? Why would they not be reincarnated like you?"

Eren makes a face and scratches thoughtfully at the back of his neck. "I dunno..." he says, "Maybe they were a shitty person and didn't deserve it?"

" _Eren_."

"This is way out of my brain power, Armin," Eren says, rubbing at his temples. "Like... I dunno. To be reincarnated you sort of have to die, I guess, so if they haven't been a shitty person, maybe they just didn't die?"

 _Maybe they just didn't die..._

Armin mulls the words over in his head. He thinks of all the images he has seen of Annie Leonhardt; thinks of how she is trapped in amber in all of them. He thinks about it for a solid minute, because it feels _impossible_ and yet...

"Of course," he mumbles. "She's been there the whole time."

x

Tonight is the third night he dreams of being a soldier.

He is in an alley, and Annie Leonhardt is standing at the opening, her back towards him with a rifle slung over her shoulder. He's asking for her help – or rather, pretending to. He knows what she is, but he still hopes with all his heart that he's wrong. She was his friend – he'd trusted her; he thinks he might have even felt the beginnings of something more –

 _Please let him be wrong._

"Do I really look like such a good person to you?" she asks quietly, turning her head a little to look at him.

"I don't really like that term," he mumbles. "To me, a 'good person' is someone who's good to you, but there can never be anyone person who's good for everyone. Which means... if you don't help me... to me, you're a bad person."

She pauses, and, after a moment, sets down her rifle. "Fine," she says. "I'll help."

Armin looks away, the pit of his stomach growing cold.

 _Please let me be wrong._

x

He visits Professor Zoe again after Eren semi-force feeds him a plate of toast.

He hopes she doesn't mind that he didn't email her in advance, because to be fair, the idea to come and see her again only hit him while he was lying awake that morning. He knocks apprehensively on her office door, realizing too late that she might have a meeting this morning and might not be in at all – but it swings opens, and Hanji Zoe greets him with a surprised smile over a mug of coffee.

"Armin," she says. "Holy dooly, kid, you look like the walking dead."

Armin imagines he must do – he hadn't had the energy to pull a comb through his hair, and there are probably circles under his eyes that would need a bag check at the local airport. "I'm sorry to bother you," he mutters as she ushers him inside. "I should have emailed or something..."

Professor Zoe waves him off. "Don't apologise – the longer you're here, the less of these papers I have to grade." She jerks her head at the piles of assessment on her filing cabinet and snorts into her mug. "What can I do for you?"

"I – uhm –" He stops, wondering where to begin. "I was wondering if you could tell me more about the Female Titan."

Zoe chortles a little. "I should think you're more of an expert in that subject by now," she says. "What is it that you want to know?"

Armin hesitates again. "Everything, I suppose," he says after a moment. "I mean... the Titan story is huge, and the – the books tend to skim over what happened where she was involved. I mean – I know she caused difficulties in one mission and that she fought with the Rogue Titan and they flattened Stohess. I also know that once they subdued her Titan form, she crystallized herself to keep her secrets but... that's about it."

"That's about all there is to know, really," says Zoe. "The only thing I can add is that stories say that Scouts tried everything to get her out and question her but nothing worked." She pauses. "You seem rather attached to her character," she adds curiously. The 'why' in her voice is obvious.

Armin shrugs. "I just think she's interesting, that's all," he lies. "If – hypothetically – all of it really did happen," he begins carefully, "is it possible that she might still be... wherever they put her?"

Zoe stares at him for a minute, but she makes an odd coughing noise that sounds sceptical but thoughtful at the same time. "I dunno," she says at last. "I mean – we never found evidence of the Titans but that doesn't mean someone couldn't make a huge discovery about them in the future. Plus, I think if somebody had found a girl trapped in amber, we'd definitely all know about it by now. I suppose if it _did_ happen and we haven't found her, then the only logical reason is that she's still there. There's definitely no way she survived though – I mean that's just – _beyond_ impossible."

"Right..." mumbles Armin. "Thanks Professor. And – can I ask a favour?"

"Sure thing, kid, I've taken a liking to you and your crazy theories." She chuckles. "What do you need?"

Armin takes a breath and nods at the framed map of the Walled Cities above her desk. "Can I borrow your map?"

x

He stops by a convenience store for baking paper just before lunch – which admittedly, he hadn't wanted, but presumably, Professor Zoe had mentioned to Mikasa that he came by again, and she'd tracked him down after her Materials lecture with a sandwich at the ready.

"Don't argue and I'll only bother you again for dinner," she had said, and Armin had sighed and accepted it with no further comment.

He's in the library now with maps spread over a table; current maps, old maps – photocopies of ancient maps, even, with records of every flood, earthquake and expedition into the underground tunnels of the Walled Cities open on the floor underneath.

He traces Doctor Zoe's map onto baking paper, and then does the same for a map of the network of tunnels beneath the Cities, then presses them over a current map and marks off the entrances that have collapsed and the tunnels that have already been searched. He pores over them for hours, noting every chamber and every entryway the public has access to in the old ruins, but it's not until well into the evening that he finds the one untouched underground chamber beneath the entirety of the Walled City.

It's in the Stohess District; a kilometre underground. Part of the tunnel had collapsed nearly eight centuries ago, burying an archaeologist who'd gone in on his own. It'd been deemed too unsafe to enter ever since.

Armin throws down his pen, feeling something more than tired or depressed for the first time in days.

"Annie," he murmurs. "I think I found you."

x

He dreams of her again.

She's standing at the top of a stairwell, watching him with eyes full of regret. Eren and Mikasa are with him too. She knows what they're doing, he realizes. She has known since he cornered her in the alley. She knows that this is a set up and that they know who she is, but Armin is here, still wishing that none of it is true.

"I'm hurt," she mumbles, trying to look as if she's not, but even from here, Armin can tell that she is. "When did you start looking at me like that, Armin?"

His hands shake, and he grips at a smoke pistol in his coat. "Why?" he asks her, voice cracking. "It was you, this whole time, and I knew it... _why_ would you do it?"

She doesn't answer. "If you knew from the beginning, why didn't you do something about it then?"

"Because I didn't want to believe it!" His voice is strangled and desperate. "I wanted to believe I was wrong but..." He takes in a breath. "That – that day in the field... why didn't you kill me?"

She snorts like the answer is obvious, but asks herself out loud like she doesn't know either. "Why _didn't_ I kill you?"

Beside him, Eren steps forward. "This isn't funny!" he snarls. "Get down here! You can prove that this was just a stupid misunderstanding by coming with us!"

"Annie, please!" Armin begs. "We can still talk about this!"

Mikasa scowls and starts back up the stairs. "That's enough," she snaps. "I know who you are, and I will tear you apart again, Female Titan!"

And Annie laughs. Armin remembers it from another dream – another life; it's crazy and beautiful and desperate, all at once, and he'd written about it in a book to make sure he could never forget.

"Armin," she says. Her smile is insane and heartbreaking at the same time. "I'm glad I could be a good person to you. But this is where my bet begins."

She lifts a finger to her mouth, and everything happens at once: Armin fires a signal flare into the air – members of the Scouting Legion tackle her down and shove a gag into her mouth – Eren starts forward to stop them but Mikasa holds him back – he sees the glint of a ring on her finger – there is an explosion of light and –

x

Armin wakes.

It's 0520.

He shuts his eyes tight again, willing himself to go back to sleep and finish the dream.

He can't.

x

He reads the end of _The Amber Prison_ again because he's desperate.

The answer is so close, he can almost taste it, but the book isn't enough. The map with the baking paper overlays is on his floor and he knows where he has to go to find her – but there's something else. There's something that he's missed, and he feels like the only way to find it is to finish the story in his head.

The door to his dorm room opens, and too late, Armin realizes that he is still in bed with his maps and his books all over the floor. The circles under his eyes are probably horrendous at this point, and he hasn't had a proper meal or a decent shower in weeks.

"Dude..." says Eren weakly, letting himself inside. "This is getting out of hand. I mean... I thought it was nuts before but this..."

Armin shakes his head. "No. I'm so _close_ , Eren, don't you see -?"

"I really don't," Eren manages, stepping carefully over the mess on the floor. "Talk to us, man, what's going on? What do we have to do to help you?"

"Nothing," snaps Armin. He pauses and relents. "You guys... can't help me. I know where she is, I think... there's just something missing and..." He lets out huff of frustration and rubs at his temples. "You were friends with her too," he mumbles. "We all were. You didn't want to believe she did all those things either."

Eren stares at him. "What are you talking about?"

" _Annie_ ," Armin says indignantly. "She trained with us – she taught you to fight – _why don't you remember her?_ "

"Armin..." Eren pulls a seat over from his desk. "'Listen okay – Annie Leonhardt is just a character from the Titan story. She's not real. Even if she was, she _killed_ all those people – she was the Female Titan for God's sakes –"

"How do you know that?" Armin cuts in sharply. "Professor Zoe said the Female Titan didn't have a name, and _I_ didn't tell you that's who she was."

"I –" Eren falters. "I probably overheard you muttering to yourself or something, I mean given the amount of time you spent on all this..."

" _How do you know_?" Armin asks again.

"I – I don't..." But Eren can't answer him.

Armin sits back and lets out a sigh. "You do remember her," he says quietly. And then he laughs, because he's _not_ crazy, he realizes. If Eren has a vague recollection of her too, it can only mean that Annie Leonhardt really _did_ exist once, and the Titan story _did_ happen, and that Eren has had previous lives too. "Eren," he says at last. "Please understand. She has haunted me in every single lifetime since the first. I _need_ to find her."

"You know how _insane_ that sounds, don't you?" asks Eren hoarsely. "Come on, man, this – this is all sorts of crazy..."

Armin shakes his head again. "I know you believe me," he says firmly. "Please. Trust me."

Eren studies him. He looks at the mess of books on the floor, and at the map with baking paper overlays, and at the book in Armin's hands. Finally, he looks Armin dead in the eye, and Armin knows he's looking for some hint of uncertainty – _something_ that'll let him argue back. But at last, he sighs. "What do you need?"

Armin lets out a relieved breath. "Sleep, I think. I've... seen it most of it happen." He makes a weird sort of motion at his temples. "I dream about it – but there's something else and I think I might be able to figure it out if I sleep. I just – I haven't been able to since this morning."

Eren nods. "I'll ask Mina if she has something that might help and I'll make sure you're not disturbed. Just... swear to me you won't do anything dumb. Please." He makes a face. "Mikasa will murder me if anything happens."

x

He dreams of her crystal.

It's just her and him, in an empty stone room. Her eyes are closed, her palms are up, and her cornflour hair is in a halo around her head, just as it always has been in his head, and in the image he'd once painted in another life.

The room ages – he sees the chains around her prison rust and fall away; he sees moss creeping in on the stone walls, thriving for a second before they decay too. He looks at the ceiling, but instead of stone, he sees himself; as a soldier coming to see her in her self-imposed prison; as a writer scribbling furiously at paper on a desk; as an archaeologist wandering through a tunnel with a map and a lantern; as an artist staring at an empty canvas; as a musician on a stage; as a lord studying a painting –

And as a student in a university library poring over books and maps looking for proof that he's not insane.

"You should be with us," he says to her. "I don't think you were shitty enough of a person to miss out on starting again." He pauses and touches his fingers to the cool surface of the amber. "It's my fault isn't it?" he asks. "I did this to you. I lied to you and I led you to this – in the end, I was as much of a liar as you. And I guess… it would have been kinder just let them kill you than for you to be trapped here all these years. Even if I knew how to get you out of there… you would be the wrong Annie, y'know?"

The crystal cracks beneath his fingers.

Annie opens her eyes.

x

Armin wakes.

The map is still on the floor. Eren must be spending the night in Mikasa's dorm because he's not in his bed. He left his pocketknife on the desk though, and Armin eyes it carefully as he checks the time.

It's 0026.

If he leaves now, he can make it into Stohess before dawn.

He gets out of bed.

x

The drive from Trost to Stohess is roughly four hours long on a good day, and Armin hopes that no one else is on the highways because he needs it to be a good day. He wants to do this with as little trouble as possible and he knows that if he's not there before dawn, he will be stopped by security at the entryway of the Stohess tunnels. He'd left a note for Eren on the desk with an apology for just taking his pocketknife, but he needs to get in somehow, and he has seen Eren pick locks with it before.

 _Whatever happens_ , he'd written, _I know what I'm doing. Trust me. I'll see you guys soon._

There's a backpack in the passenger seat next to him with a torch and his maps, and he drives along the highways at a speed he knows he will be ticketed for if he gets caught. It's 0445 when finally pulls into the city.

The network of tunnels beneath the Walled Cities have more or less turned into tourist destinations, and Stohess' unfinished underground city is no exception. He can almost see the ghost of Annie's figure standing at the entryway, and he jumps the chain and hurries into the darkness as if the image has renewed his determination to find her.

He pulls the torch and his map out of his backpack as soon as he knows the light can't be seen from above ground. Something bubbles in his stomach – anticipation, he thinks? – it makes his fingers tremble and his breathing shallow, and it makes picking the lock at the gate barring the passage especially difficult. He cuts his thumb open once and misses the keyhole twice but, ten minutes later, the lock clicks and the gate swings open.

He walks for what feels like hours before he finds the block in the tunnel that buried the archaeologist (him in a past life, probably – he almost remembers it) centuries ago. But there's a space in the top corner that he thinks he might be able to get through, so he climbs the mound of earth and shoves his backpack through first.

It's a bit of a squeeze – he struggles a little to get his shoulders through, but he manages with only a couple of cuts and scrapes to show for it.

The passage stretches on. Armin feels like he's been wandering for hours, and for a moment, he thinks he's in a dream again and he wonders if he'll ever find the Annie's chamber. But he does – the tunnel twists and turns, and his feet are beginning to ache, but at last, he finds the wooden door at the end.

There must be a reservoir or something near by, because the stone walls of the passage are damp and there are ankle deep puddles in places where the ground is uneven. He gives the door a tentative push, but it feels soft and like it will give way with enough force. It does: the iron locks have rusted and worn away, and it creaks open and slants at the hinges when he lands a solid kick against the wood.

His breath hitches.

Her crystal is there. She's been untouched for more than a thousand years, and she's _there_ and as beautiful as the day she trapped herself within it.

"Annie," he manages hoarsely, half unwilling to believe that he'd been right the whole time. He steps forward and the water sloshes at his feet. It's deeper here, and he can feel drops against his skin as they fall from cracks in the ceiling. "I'm sorry," he says, pressing his fingers to the amber. "I'm so sorry. All those lives you didn't get to live…"

Blood from the cut on his thumb smears against the smooth edges of the stone and suddenly, it feels warm. The crystal cracks beneath his fingers and Armin stumbles backwards as a great hiss of steam escapes from the fractured surface. He barely has time to brace himself before it explodes outwards in a shower of amber, the force strong enough to knock him off his feet and put a hole n the back of the chamber. Water floods the room, and Armin hisses as it makes contact with his skin, and, amidst the chaos, Annie Leonhardt falls from her prison, limp and weak but _alive._

"Annie!" he chokes. He scrambles forward to catch her, numb, shaking fingers grasping at Eren's pocketknife.

Her eyes flutter open. "You," she rasps. "I –" Her breath hitches.

"I kn-know," says Armin, gritting his teeth against the cold of the water pooling around their legs. He holds her tightly, the warmth of her blood like boiling water against his fingers.

The pocket knife is pressed into her ribs.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for this."

She slumps against him, and Armin tears the blade out of her flesh and clutches her tighter. "I'm so, so sorry," he mumbles again. "I'm not the Armin you remember," he tries to explain, but his throat is tight and his voice is cracking beneath the strain of grief. "And you're not the Annie that should be here today."

"You… always… did have guts," Annie gasps.

The water is at chest level now and her skin is growing cold under his fingers. Armin lets out a sob, clutching her body to him tighter still. "I'm supposed to be a doctor in this life, did you know?" he tells her. "I'm almost glad I won't be getting out of here." He swallows. "I've already killed two people. I'd be an awful doctor."

She shudders. "You were… an awful liar too."

Armin takes in a breath. "I'm sorry," he murmurs again. "But I'll see you again soon, won't I?"

She doesn't answer.

The water is still rising.

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Armin wakes.

He gasps loudly, gulping air down like a man who'd almost drowned. He clutches at his chest and sputters for a moment, and it takes him a minute to realize where he is.

He's in his room. The sheets are tangled around his feet. His curtains have been pulled open, and Eren is sitting at his computer on the other side of the room, fiddling with a padlock.

"Oh hey, you're awake," he says, and Armin blinks and looks up at him. "You haven't seen my pocketknife, have you?" He pauses. "Dude, you okay? Your inhaler's on the desk if you need it."

Armin shakes his head. "I'm fine," he manages. He thinks he had a bad dream, but the memory of it fades as his breathing becomes easier. "What happened?"

Eren snorts at him. "You must have had a _ton_ to drink last night," he teases. "End of semester party, remember?"

"Sorta…" Armin blinks the sleep out of his eyes. "I'm gonna hit the showers. I think I can still smell alcohol."

Eren snorts again, and there's a grin on his face that makes Armin squirm a little.

"You know, it's so _rare_ to see you hungover."

He scowls. "Shut up."

x

He wanders through campus a little later in a sort of daze. His bag is heavy and full of textbooks he supposes he should return to the library, but the amount of light the sun is putting out is hurting his entire face, and given the headache he has, he imagines having a cup of coffee first might help. He lets himself into the campus coffee shop and orders an espresso with as much caffeine in it that they're allowed to serve. He helps himself to (probably) five packets of sugar, and next to him, somebody lets out a chuckle.

"That's – uh – that's a lot of sugar you got there."

Armin looks up and blinks. It's a girl, with ocean blue eyes and cornflour hair. There's something strangely familiar about her, but he's not sure what. "I like my coffee sweet," he says stupidly. "Nothing cures a hangover like the possibility of diabetes."

She laughs. "Partied a little too hard last night, did you?"

He flushes, but despite himself, he can't seem to tear his eyes away from her face. "Sorry," he says.  
But… do I know you?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Don't think so," she says. She grins. "Would you like to?"

If his face wasn't already red before, it certainly is now. "Um." He coughs. "I'd love to," he manages. "I'm Armin."

"Nice to meet you, Armin," she says. She holds out a hand for him to shake. "I'm Annie. Annie Leonhardt."

* * *

 **Some notes**

1) I have had this idea in my head since literally February, and for a while, I thought it was just gonna be one of those fic ideas I had but never wrote out SO I would like to give a huuuuge shout out to my boyfriend and probably better half Joash for helping figure out exactly what I wanted to do with it like the ginormous dork I am. I don't even like the show anymore guys, I just love it for the AUs. I would also like to thank Of Monsters and Men bc I swear to God, every second song on _My Head is an Animal_ can be linked to aruani in some way (this was mostly inspired by Silhouettes – hence title –but also by Love Love Love, Little Talks and King and Lionheart ALL AT ONCE.)

2) I am legit crying at how long this turned out to be; I have never written anything so monstrous in one go ever before.

3) I hope this came out okay? I'm not gonna lie, guys, over the past week, I have had probably half the amount of sleep I should have had, in part because of this titan of a fic (eeeey) and in part bc all my shifts have been nights or late afternoons. I don't know if Armin's crazy came out gradually enough or if I'd not been obvious about certain things? I don't know – I have read and reread this too many times to actually know if it's even decent, so feedback would be _hugely_ appreciated.


End file.
